


Increase

by Tieleen



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 17:18:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2476133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tieleen/pseuds/Tieleen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The film is terrible, because all films Clint and Natasha like are terrible. Peggy's book, on the other hand, is excellent. It's too bad she keeps losing track of the words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Increase

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy the story, Merfilly! Thank you for giving me both the chance to write it and the prompt -- I couldn't resist the idea of Peggy/Natasha with Peggy as Captain America.

The film is terrible, because all films Clint and Natasha like are terrible. Peggy's book, on the other hand, is excellent. It's too bad she keeps losing track of the words.

The man on the screen jumps too high and makes the lucky swing of a lifetime. It's the sixth time so far, and that's just in those parts when she happened to be looking at the screen. She looks away from it again, determined to finish a full paragraph this time, while Natasha laughs -- soft muted movement of her cheek against Peggy's thigh, the sound low and amused -- and Clint mutters overjoyed derision from the other couch.

She manages four lines before she catches sudden movement on the screen at the edge of her vision, and somehow she's watching again, thirty opponents with terrible aim against one lucky, and apparently intangible, man. It wouldn't be so offensive if the getup he's sporting wasn't so clearly a call-back to her own. And that in turn wouldn't be so offensive if there was more than one woman in the film, or if she'd gotten to do some of the rescuing.

(Peggy is a realist, at least in some things. She wasn't surprised to find out that the world had spent seventy years re-imagining her in more convenient forms. She's still a little surprised they were willing to remember the original version.)

"This is the worst movie I've ever seen," Tony says. "I can't believe I let you people do this to my TV."

Peggy heaves out a tiny, silent sigh. "Really, Tony? Why should today be any different?"

The puppy-dog eyes she gets in return are always slightly disconcerting, because the face is different and the age is wrong and even the smarm is a bit off, but some things clearly breed true. "So it's like that, Cap? And here I thought you were on my side."

Natasha twists herself back, shoulder tucking into Peggy's stomach to look up at her face, and Peggy rolls her eyes down at her wordlessly. Natasha's answering grin is small and delighted, almost as if she thinks they're sharing a joke at Junior's expense, when she clearly knows damned well that it's actually Peggy questioning her own atrocious taste in women in particular and her choices in life in general, or really anything at all that has led her to this moment. On second thought, it's probably the fault of some Stark or another, however you look at it.

"You misunderstand me, Tony," she says, when Natasha turns back to her film -- currently with bonus explosions -- and rubs her cheek against Peggy's thigh in not-at-all-disguised satisfaction. "I'm so very much on your side that I'd support any move you wanted to make to defend your television. Quite possibly armed."

"Shh," Clint says, not bothering to turn away from the screen and look at them. "This is the best part."

"It is? That's a horrifying thought," Tony says. "You know what, I vote this bonding time officially over. Want to do some sparring, Carter? I could get the suit, we can practice for the next time one of them gets to pick the movie."

Peggy gives this a moment of serious consideration. She's been doing a lot of catching up on modern times for the last year and a half, but the cinema is fairly low on her list; she doesn't have any real grasp of the recent history of film, and she suspects every moment she spends half-watching this one is exponentially lowering her will to learn more.

On the other hand, her book really is very good. She's sure she can eventually ignore the television, it's only a matter of will power. And she is technically an old lady now, as far too many people keep reminding her; she probably deserves the rest.

It's also the case that Natasha's hair is soft and smooth between Peggy's fingers, and Natasha's fingers are loosely wrapped around Peggy's knee, occasionally tightening in some mysterious response to the going-ons on the screen. And it's also the case that Stark Tower has the best air conditioning genius can build and money can pay for, but it's a chilly evening outside these walls, and Peggy is quite pleased to be sitting here in the comfortable warmth. 

"No, thank you," she says, holding her book up. "This is the best part."

Tony nods at her. "Probably better that way. Wouldn't want the hat to fall off."

Peggy manages to concentrate for a full two and a half paragraphs after Tony leaves. When she looks up again, the hero is hanging off a cliff by his literal finger tips, and Clint is smirking at her silently instead of marveling at his choice of entertainment.

Peggy gives him a raised eyebrow, and the smirk widens into a smile before he turns his attention back to the screen. The hero is handily rescued, though it isn't, of course, by his lady friend. Peggy adjusts her hat so it falls over both ears more or less evenly, and manages to reach the end of the page. One thing has to be said for war; it teaches you to be able to ignore gunfire when needed.

When Peggy was a child, her grandmother taught her to embroider. Peggy hadn't liked it, exactly, but she'd kept at it for years -- needling lovely delicate designs into handkerchiefs and pillowcases, which her mother would inevitably tell her were beautifully done but astonishingly old-fashioned for a girl like her. She'd done it because she liked beautiful things, because it reminded her of her grandmother's fingers patiently correcting her own, because you could embroider while you talked or organized or thought of other things, and there was satisfaction in feeling so thoroughly occupied. It was a pleasant, useless skill, creating nothing but adding to what already existed.

She'd learned other things, too, in the war and before it, and many of them were useful: fixing a motorcycle engine and darning socks, hunting when rations were low and confusing your opponent into anticipating the wrong attack, the correct way to roll when falling from a height that would kill a normal person on the spot. But all of that was fixing and changing and adding; none of it was creating something from whole cloth.

She reaches up to tug at the hat where it runs across her forehead. It's the softest wool, expensive to the touch. The tug is enough to make it sag over her ear again. If she squints up she can just see an impression of the color, a lovely tasteful shade of heather green.

When she looks down, Clint is smirking at her again. Peggy doesn't bother to react this time; it _is_ an amazingly ugly hat, after all. It is the careful, well-planned work of someone with no idea at all what she's doing and no inherent skill with a pair of knitting needles. It's the creation of someone who is still very bad at knitting, and it is Peggy's, because Peggy hates being cold and the leaves are turning now. There's just a hint of chill in the air that is terribly familiar, and although that chill is banned by technology in this den, Peggy has a terribly-made woolen hat and will soon have a not much better scarf.

The thing is that Natasha isn't used to being bad at anything, as far as Peggy knows. She doesn't think there are many things it takes her long to master. But Natasha made this hat, instead of buying any number of artistically woven creations made by craftsmen, and she knows it's terrible and she knows Peggy knows it, too.

Natasha is far more practical, never seems to stumble on pointless foolish pride, but Peggy thinks that even so, it can't be as easy to give things when you know they aren't very good. It can't be entirely easy to receive the fact that the person you made it for loves the too-large holes and uneven rows, not when you're so used to having all your rows in order. She thinks maybe the way those things tangle together is something they've learned, a skill they're acquiring together, maybe. Or maybe it's just a hat, and the size of the holes is not so terribly important.


End file.
